Apple CEO John Ternus called it the company’s “biggest education deal ever for Mac” on Apple’s earnings call: MacBook Neos for “teachers and staff” at the Philippines’ Department of Education (DepEd). DepEd says it’s paying about Php 43,000 (about $680) apiece, close to what Apple charges a single teacher.
DepEd’s count is 172,654, a little over Ternus’s 170,000: 169,008 for teachers and 3,646 for administrative officers, delivered from November through March 2027. The teacher units are part of 231,725 teacher laptops DepEd has awarded so far, and the other 62,717 run Windows.
That price is about Php 7,000 under the Php 49,990 (about $790) Apple’s Philippine store charges for the base 256GB model. DepEd’s release puts the retail price at Php 49,900.
Apple’s education store, open to any employee of a public or private K-12 school, lists the same model at Php 45,990 (about $725). So a teacher buying one alone pays only about Php 3,000 more than DepEd does.
DepEd hasn’t said which configuration it bought. Every MacBook Neo has the A18 Pro chip and 8GB of memory; the 512GB version adds Touch ID for Php 52,990 (about $835) in the education store, which would make DepEd’s saving about Php 10,000 a unit.
DepEd also hasn’t given the total or named the supplier that won the bidding. At about Php 43,000 each, the order comes to about Php 7.4 billion (about $117 million).
The package includes a five-year warranty, which DepEd says is a first for its laptop purchases; retail buyers get one year. It also covers delivery and training: DepEd and Apple co-designed GuroXL, a teacher-training program run with the National Educators Academy of the Philippines (NEAP) that leads toward Apple Teacher certifications.
In 2021, DepEd’s teacher laptops were entry-level Dell Latitude 3420s with Intel Celeron chips, budgeted at Php 58,300 each. A Senate Blue Ribbon Committee inquiry later found that contract overpriced by at least Php 979 million.
The take
We think the warranty and the training, not the discount, make this a good deal: five years of coverage is four more than retail buyers get. DepEd should say which model it bought, though, because that’s the difference between saving about Php 3,000 a laptop and about Php 10,000. In case we see any units on the ground and find out ourselves, we’ll let you know.
